Project 6
Symbolism in the Ara Pacis and the Parthenon
Learning Goal: Assess and present scholarship of a theoretical nature and apply theory to both primary and secondary sources.
Literacy: Information
The Ara Pacis portrays the coming of a newer, better era, a recollection of the past, and the coming of peace, piety, and fecundity. Though different, it also has many similarities with the Parthenon in its represented symbolism.
"They have similarities in their displays of power, the importance of their location, and the values that they represent, but the Ara Pacis was made to increase the legitimacy of Augustus through an emphasis on peace, the new era, and the bounties he can bring to the people of Rome."
This assignment, like my paper on the Parthenon, was a short essay assignment, and I chose to write about the similarities and differences between the Ara Pacis and the Parthenon. I wanted to include this piece because I feel like it ties well with my paper on the Parthenon. There are many similarities between the two papers—they were both for the same class at different points in the semester, and they both are at least partially about the Parthenon. I believe this assignment is successful. This is due to the fact that I believe I proficiently compared the two monuments. In this way, I believe that I conveyed both the similarities and differences between Greece and Rome values, and the odd sort of admiration that Rome had for Greece in those shared values, and how Augustus legitimized his rule through these factors.
Like many other pieces that I comment on here, I feel like this cemented my role as a Classics major and also helped me gain more perspective on the world of antiquity. This is one of my only, if not the only, paper that I’ve done that compares Greece and Rome directly, and I think that it is important for a Classics major to not only learn how Greece and Rome interacted with each other politically (such as my speech on the Augustus statue) and how they interacted with each other socially through other means. If I could redo this item, I would want to go into more detail because there are some parts that I find lacking.